“Perfect behaviour is born of complete indifference.”

The act the act must not be a revenge. It must be a calm, weary renunciation, a closing of accounts, a private, rhythmic deed. The last remark.

There is no finer revenge than that which others inflict on your enemy. Moreover, it has the advantage of leaving you the role of a generous man.

Love is the cheapest of religions.

A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work.

Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed.

Love has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other’s sight, but in their own.

The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.

Death is repose, but the thought of death disturbs all repose.

You’ve got to understand life, understand it when you’re young.

Hate is always a clash between our spirit and someone else’s body.

The real affliction of old age is remorse.

A corpse is what’s left after waking too often.

The cadence of suffering has begun. Every evening at dusk, my heart constricts until night has come.

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that, not knowing what truth may be, we can still recognize lies.

A love thought: I love you so much that I could wish I had been born your brother, or had brought you into the world myself.

Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic.

Growing up in Michigan was fine, until I realized where I was.

Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

From the depths of the West of Europe, a young child will be born of poor people, he who by his tongue will seduce a great troop; his fame will increase towards the realm of the East.

Man comes not from an egg but from an animalcule that is found in male sperm.

For the birth of something new, there has to be a happening. Newton saw an apple fall; James Watt watched a kettle boil; Roentgen fogged some photographic plates. And these people knew enough to translate ordinary happenings into something new.

Nothing is born, nothing dies.

I’m convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.